DAY 1: KY Lake was off limits for the week leading up to this one so everybody started even on Friday. My trusty team partner David Gnewikow decided to go on vacation so I had to fend for myself against some of the best teams on the Lake. My plan was to spend day one running through everything I'd been fishing the past month both shallow and deep from Danville to Blood River until I saw enough to dial into what I should focus on for day two. My first stop was what I now call the nightmare hole where Woodside and I had such bad luck in the Carl Perkins. A few twitches into the day a 2.5lber exploded on my Sexy Dawg and had every hook in its face! That was a big relief because that told me, they were eating. 20 minutes later a 5lber did a flip over my bait and never touched it! I hit one more top water spot after that without a bite and decided I couldn't stomach another day of what I'd seen the week before so I pulled out the Shadalicous and headed out deep. My first school produced a small keeper and a 3lber or two and I moved on. My second school only produced three bites but they were a 3.5, a 4 and a 5lber. That gave me the confidence to spend some time looking out deep. Something told me to check some places I catch them in the winter on the umbrella rig and the first one I scanned had a few fish on it. I rigged up a TN legal Titanium rig with Swimmin' Caffeine shads and a big Shadalicious in the middle. I fired it out on the school and caught two on my first cast, one was a small keeper and one was 3lbs and culled. I looked at another place and saw a few on it and I caught 8 or 10 3lbers there. I was culling up by ounces but I felt like I was heading in the right direction. I checked some really deep places, saw a few bass and caught a couple of 4lbers! I eventually made my way all the way north of Blood River and had marked fish on 10 or 12 places that I catch really big ones on in the winter. Time finally ran out and I weighed in 19.76lbs and was in 4th place heading into day two but I really felt like the big ones were heading my way and the front coming through the next day could only help my cause.
PTT CLASSIC OCT. 19th DAY 2: This will be short and sweet! Just when you think your one step ahead of those little green suckers they do what they do best, disappear! After catching over 60 keepers on day one I caught 6, that's right SIX keepers on day two and only three came on the umbrella rig. I didn't have a keeper in the boat until 1:30 and all I could think about was dropping a goose egg on KY Lake! I caught a small keeper on the Sexy Dawg, a small keeper on a worm and a 4lber on a football jig with five minutes left in the day. I weighed in 13.61lbs and finished 9th overall.
SUMMARY: I really liked this format with no practice. It makes it interesting trying to figure it out on the fly and at about 2pm on Friday, I thought I'd unlocked the magic pattern! I can't complain, tournament fishing is a bit like gambling and I went all in on the deep fish and the guys that stayed shallow caught them and caught them good. Congrats to a couple of my favorite people, Billy and Bill Shcroeder who won by almost 5lbs with 45lbs of top water fish!
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